Alexandra McQueen toasted her lawyer. They
had just accomplished a shit storm of tedious and piddling paperwork—weeks of
deeds, inspections, appraisals, and taxes—and had emerged the other side,
unscathed. Xandra was more than happy to clink wine glasses with Sol Greenspan.

Three months ago Xandra had never been
to Utah. She knew Utah as the place where Robert Redford and Mormons lived, and
something about a film festival and skiing. If someone would’ve told her that
in three months’ time she’d be sitting on the deck of her very own ski lodge
near the rim of a dazzling red rock canyon, Xandra would have thought that her
drug-addled ex-boyfriend was concocting a prank.

Now here she was. Peaceful and serene,
all the papers signed, safely away from Javier “Slippery Fish” Santana. The i’s
were dotted and the t’s crossed, the deck overlooked a wonderland of stone
spires and natural stone pinnacles, and she was toasting with her very own
lawyer. Clink.

“Dude.” That was Doug’s toast. A very
casual sort of guy, Doug Ostrovsky was Xandra’s stepbrother a few times
removed. It had taken Sol and Doug days to figure out how Doug and Xandra were
related, sitting around the long table in the lodge’s ballroom, hand-drawing
organizational charts with Doug and Xandra’s ancestors’ names scribbled in the
boxes. They’d finally decided to leave it at “stepsiblings.” Doug had actually
been closely acquainted with the lodge’s recently deceased owner, Wanda Burns. Doug
had worked at the Triple Play Lodge for years, now elevated to General Manager.
But because Doug wasn’t related to Wanda by blood, only by his father’s
marriage, ownership of the lodge had fallen to Xandra, Wanda’s next of kin. “You’re
coming with us to The Inkwells, right? You need to learn the terrain beyond the
borders of the lodge.”

The Inkwells was apparently a series of
connected swimming holes, enormous depressions rubbed smooth in the red rock by
millennia of rushing water. There were some vaguely naked connotations to these
Inkwells that Xandra wasn’t entirely comfortable with. She was from Charleston.
People in the west were a lot more relaxed than easterners.

“Bring your swimsuit,” said Cassandra. “If
you brought one.”

“Oh, I have one, all right,” Xandra
said, chipper. She started gathering her things as if to leave. “I just wanted
to stop by and see Lucretia about those bed sheets. And Leif. I wanted to see
Leif about the chanterelles.”

Xandra froze, halfway standing. “Irritating!”
she gasped. “Why, I’m the new owner of the Triple Play! Of course I’m a bit
nervous, seeing as how I’ve never run a lodge before.”

“You’ve been to a lodge before,” Sol said wearily. He’d quoted her asinine
remark a dozen times by now. She’d been so naïve when she first came here! How
she wished she could take that comment back. Yes, she had been to a resort in
Myrtle Beach once. And Javier had taken her to Vermont once to ski. The trip
had mostly consisted of them posing in the lounge wearing trendy ski jackets,
clacking their unused skis together while Javier made transactions with other
businessmen who didn’t ski, either.

Xandra hadn’t even noticed there was a McQueen Valley, Utah, on a map
until her father’s lawyer had informed them three months ago. Even if she had
noticed it, she wouldn’t have assumed it had to do with her family. She
would’ve thought it had to do with Steve. That was logical, since he’d made at
least one movie with Robert Redford.

Sol continued wistfully. “Enoki seduced
with a misting of clarified ox oil.” He reached for a deviled egg, too.

Xandra frowned at her lawyer. “I get the
picture. I’m bothering Leif—”

“And Lucretia,” Doug inserted.

“—with nitpicky crap. But today isn’t
the day for me to learn horseback riding. The charity fishing event starts
tomorrow so I don’t think we should be gallivanting around swimming. I mean, you guys can. I’m going to get with the
event director and make sure the ballroom is ready. Last time we had that
quilting convention, the podium was misplaced.” Xandra slung her enormous
shapeless purse over her shoulder and hugged her clipboard and notebook to her
chest to let everyone know she meant business.

Sol asked, “Fishermen make PowerPoint
presentations?”

“They sure do,” said Xandra.

Doug goofed, “About which kind of worms
they want to use?”

Xandra ignored her stepbrother. “Sol,
you’re flying out tonight?”

This apparently reminded Sol to gulp
down the rest of his wine. He smacked his lips. “Yup. I’ve got to get back to
Provo. Believe it or not, I’ve got other clients.” He chuckled, but everyone
else looked at him blankly. Apparently no one believed he had other clients. He
cleared his throat and stood, too. “You should be all set, Xandra. You’ve got
Doug here to run everything, and Cass handles all the daily inner workings of
the entire machine. Theoretically you shouldn’t even have to worry about
piddling things like worm presentations. Theoretically you should be able to lie
around in the mud bath all day long. Write a romance novel, eat chocolate
bonbons.”

Xandra frowned. “Like Wanda did?”

Wanda McQueen Burns had not lounged
around in the mud baths all day. From Doug’s accounts, Wanda had been a
spitfire until her final days, zipping about the lodge attending to every
detail. And no one had accused her of micromanaging. They all seemed to have
welcomed her “interferences.”

Sol waved a dismissive hand at Xandra. They
started walking together toward the breezeway that led to the main lodge. “You
just steer clear of that Slimy Weasel fellow like we talked about.”

Xandra corrected Sol. “Slippery Fish. And
Javier isn’t that bad. He’s just a meth kingpin, not a…” She was about to say
“not a criminal” until she realized how incorrect that was. “He’s not a crazed
maniac. Thank God we were never married, and I doubt I’ll ever have any
dealings with him again.”

Sol held the door open for Xandra. His
look was meaningful. “Yeah. He just liked to fling you around and slam you into
the wall whenever he didn’t get his way.”

Xandra regretted the day she’d ever told
Sol about that. She wanted to move into a positive future, living life fully,
not be dragged down by the past. “Have no fear, Sol. Javier isn’t leaving
Charleston to chase me down.”

“And Doug’s got a great idea. Get out
into the countryside. Ride those horses. Become familiar with the cattle. Wanda
rode out once a day. She just liked to stand on the rim of Prism Canyon, gaze
out, and think Zen thoughts. There’s a good idea. Ask Doug about that whole Zen
racket. That’ll calm your nerves. ‘The quieter you are, the more you can hear.’
I’m not much of a caballero myself, or I would’ve taken you out riding. Get
Doug to do it.”

“Well,” said Xandra, “not until this
fishing tournament is over.” Already they had walked past a couple dozen men
and more than one woman wearing shirts and caps emblazoned with logos of their
sponsors. Attendees were NASCAR racers, professional anglers, country music
entertainers, and all 150 of her rooms had been booked for weeks, including all
of the twenty cabins scattered closer to the river.

Xandra fairly swam in pheromones as she
passed by these manly men, but she wasn’t ready to even consider a fling yet. That
was one of the beauties of owning a lodge, she was discovering. Everyone here
was a transient tourist. Even when she inevitably felt ready to have a passing
hookup, the guy would be gone the next week. Strictly a wham, bam, thank you
ma’am, and that was fine with her, she imagined. There was no danger of
becoming emotionally involved and therefore devastated when she was ultimately
disappointed, let down, or abused by the guy. And that would be all men. Xandra
was convinced that all men would ultimately do that to her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sol said. “Hey, Cody!”

Sol greeted a fellow Xandra knew to be
the Triple Play cattle ranch manager. She didn’t want to talk about cows or
horseback riding, so she darted behind a group of anglers and headed for the
hallway that led to her ground floor suite.

As radically as Xandra’s life had
changed in the past three months, she couldn’t have predicted how it was about
to be turned upside down all over again.

Doug caught up with her when she was
nearly to her suite at the end of the hallway.

“Dude,” he said urgently.

Xandra sighed. She really didn’t want to
hear how easy it was riding a horse. “Just like riding a bike,” Doug had told
her, “only a bike doesn’t whinny and shit.” She’d gone horseback riding once as
a young teen in Charleston, with her sisters. Her butt was slapped so raw from
bouncing up and down in the saddle she had walked like a—well, like a cowboy
for a week afterward.

“No horse similes, Doug.”

“No horse similes,” he agreed happily. Doug
Ostrovsky was a very happy-go-lucky, easygoing guy. Xandra was thankful,
because she was fated to deal with him every day on many different levels. “I
just wanted to say, I don’t want you to feel bad about Wanda’s will.”

Oh,
damn. She
was going to have to stop walking for this one. It sounded serious, and Doug
wasn’t the type to discuss random serious things.

Doug continued, “I never expected
anything in her will. I wasn’t related to her by blood—just her son-in-law’s
stepson.”

“Yes, but you’ve worked at the Triple
Play for ten years, Doug.”

“So has Cass,” Doug pointed out
sincerely. “So have Leif and Cody and a ton more people. Shit, people work jobs
for fifty years and don’t even get a watch.”

“Yes. All the more reason why everyone
should resent me—a stranger—who just falls into the inheritance. What have I
done to deserve it? Nothing. I never even met Wanda.”

“The lodge and ranch were supposed to go
to your dad, Dennis, Wanda’s nephew, who has
met Wanda a bunch of times. It’s not your fault your dad decided to give it
straight to you.”

“Yeah,” Xandra said sullenly. “Because
he felt sorry for me, living with a lowlife dickhead like Javier. He knew I
needed a new life, a fresh start. Something to sink my teeth into, to get my
mind off Javier.”

Doug’s eyes grew round. “Whoa,” he
whispered.

“I know. Pathetic, huh? And Dad didn’t
even know that Javier threw me around when he made that decision.”

“Whoa.” The color had drained from
Doug’s face. Xandra knew Doug to be a caring sort of guy, but he was really
getting emotional about the whole Javier thing. Hadn’t they already discussed
Javier’s abuse of her? Why was he acting like it was such shocking news?

“Well,” said Xandra. “I’m away from
Charleston now, thank God. Now we can move on, and—”

Doug shoved past her, toward the front
door of her suite. His hand recoiled from the doorknob as though zapped. “Fingerprints,” he whispered. “Don’t
touch the knob.”

It took several seconds for it to sink
into Xandra’s addled brain. My door was
already open.

Xandra pushed past Doug, making sure not
to touch anything. The living area looked fairly untouched aside from a few
overturned southwest objets d’art and tossed couch pillows. The armoire was
open wide, but the thief had only strewn about the few jackets and coats that
had been hung in there.

My
safe.
She had nothing in there other than some heirloom pieces of jewelry and the
passport she didn’t expect to ever use again, but Xandra rushed to the bedroom
to check the safe. It was still closed tight, but the gold-plated handle had
been bashed by something, as though an inept burglar had tried to open it.

Her dresser was a complete hurricane
zone, though. It seemed that almost every item of clothing had been strewn
around the room. In particular disarray was her jewelry box on top of the
dresser. In her haste, Xandra didn’t note any of her crappy junk jewelry
missing. What was missing, anyway? She raced back into the living area.

There was a table in a sunny nook where
she kept her laptop and important papers. Doug already stood there, hands on
his bony hips, his Pearl Jam T-shirt draped like a flag from his torso. “They
didn’t touch anything here,” he observed.

“I know—it’s weird. It’s like they went
straight to my bedroom and rooted through my clothes.”

“What’d they take?”

“Nothing that I can figure out. Maybe we
interrupted and surprised them in the act.”

Doug went to the back sliding door that
led to the private deck. This entire wall of the wing faced southwest, and
Xandra had spent many a relaxing early evening sipping wine out here with Cass,
Sol, or Doug, watching the sun set over Prism Canyon. Xandra looked forward to
the winter when they could stand out there with hot chocolate mugs, soaking in
the snowy view.

Doug lifted the hem of his loose, holey
T-shirt so he could open the slider without getting prints on the handle. It
was still locked from the inside.

“He obviously went back out through the
front door. And I didn’t pass anyone in the hallway coming down here—anyone
other than fishermen,” Doug added.

A new voice in the suite startled them. “He
could be disguised as a fisherman,” said Cassandra.

“He could be a fisherman,” Doug pointed out.

Xandra frowned. “Why would a fisherman
be rooting through my clothes?”

Doug and Cass shared looks as if to say Do you even need to ask that?

“Oh, come on!” cried Xandra. “Just because they spend a week out of the year
competitive fishing that automatically means they need to break in to sniff my panties? Come on, you guys.”

“How could I forget? Douche bag won the
big purse—a forty-five thousand dollar boat—but was disqualified because he’d forgotten
to get a fishing license.”

Xandra jammed her hand onto her hip. “Yeah.
That automatically makes him a pervert.”

Cass explained. “He was so distraught he
went on a bender. He bet someone he could get into the baby swing at the
playground, so he stripped and greased himself up. He got stuck and died of a
ruptured appendix.”

“Anyway,” said Cass, “I already called
Marcus and told him to review his security tapes for this hallway and he’s got
his men stationed all around the building ready to nab anyone if we recognize
him.”

Doug clarified for her. “He thinks
spacemen invaded his brain. They tell him things like don’t eat margarine and
grind your own pepper.”

Xandra rolled her eyes. “Oh, that makes
it better. He actually sounds like a likely suspect.”

Cass made a thoughtful face. “Anyway. I
think I just saw someone who can help us, seeing as how Marcus probably can’t. On
my way over here just now, of course I passed by the Neon Cocktail. All sorts
of anglers in there, comparing their biggest catches, I guess. Anyway, of
course I just vaguely glanced in there since I was in a rush to get here. Well. There was this gorgeous, beefy, hunky, muscular son of
a bitch”—Doug rolled his eyes now, as Cass formed her hands into claws of
desire—“with this impeccably hot ass—”

Xandra cleared her throat. “Cass. Get to
the point.”

Cass sobered up. “Oh. Right. Anyway, I
think this guy is a cop or some sort of law enforcement because he had a
shoulder holster with a pistol in it. I know if you’re licensed to carry a
concealed weapon you’re supposed to keep it concealed, but he was sort of, ah,
getting into a bit of a brawl with a fisherman, so his jacket sort of lifted
up, and—”

“All right,” said Xandra, clutching
Cass’s upper arm. “Let’s go find your hunky cop. If nothing else, we can stop
the brawl from getting worse. No point in injuring the anglers before the
tournament even starts. Doug, wait here. Can you find Sol before he leaves? I’d
like to get his take on this.”

Xandra whisked her friend down the
hallway. “You just wanted an excuse to talk to this beefy cop,” she chided
Cass. “But he could actually be the culprit, if he’s packing a concealed
weapon.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Cass said dreamily as
they sped by several groups of outdoorsmen. “His ass was too impeccably hot.”

Xandra snorted in exasperation. Sometimes
women could be more predatory than men.

She went through the Neon Cocktail’s
doorway. And stopped dead in her tracks when she instantly saw what Cass was
mooning about.

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